Page:History of the Empress Josephine (3).pdf/14

 the barriers of etiquette, has been respected like a sanctuary."

Josephine, on all occasions, evinced a strong desire to be permitted to accompany her husband on his military expeditions. On one ocassion however after promising to take the empress, something having occured to alter his intention, and require speed, he resolved on departing privately without his companion. Fixing accordingly one in the morning, the hour when she was most likely to be asleep, he was just about to step into the carriage, when Josephine in a most piteous plight, threw herself into his arms. By some means she had obtained information of what was going forward, and called her women; but impatient of any delay, had got up without waiting for them, and throwing about her the first drapery she could lay lands upon, had rushed down stairs. A moment later, and Napoleon would have been off like lightning; but he could rarely withstand the tears of his wife, so placing her along the bottom of the carriage, he covered her with his travelling pelisse, giving orders himself about the clothes and proper attedants of the empresss.

But we must now revert to the domestic privacy of the empress. “From about midday till about half-past two or three o'clock was part by the empress in her apartments, working, conversing and reading with her ladies. While the rest were at work, one of the ladies, permanently appointed to the office of reader, read alone at such times as conversation was not preferred. When any literary production gave more than usual pleasure, it was immediately begun from the commencement, and perused a second time. The volumes selected were for the most part, of a highly interesting and useful character, from the standard writers, and